Dear Parents,
What a week! Is Spring here? The Groundsman has been hard at work on the cricket squares and there have been days where coats have not been needed. We have also had an as yet unnamed visiting lamb in school (planned) – I would encourage you to help your children choose a name for it. My options of Shank and Mint Sauce are not seen as acceptable…
On Thursday, in my prep assembly, we spent time looking at the importance of understanding why we are learning about something to build intrinsic motivation – and the value of success criteria in helping a pupil to understand how to complete a task. (Podcast homework for parents – Ben Ryan). We looked at ‘bucket lists’ for holidays, Aussie children living in the countryside (great fun) and travelling in London to illustrate how lists show success. We watched a Joe Root video on how to complete a perfect ‘forward defensive’ shot – and used that to show that sport can tell us how to complete tasks – and built some success criteria on completing the shot. The aim is to help pupils to ‘own’ their own learning.
We had a brilliant set of candidates for interview this week for two roles – to replace Mrs Kirk and to add another teacher to Pre-Prep due to the growth of the school. The field was amazing and I will share further details when the two chosen candidates have signed their contracts! We are very excited by what they will bring to the super team who are there already.
Have a very good weekend
Edward Bond
Headmaster